And, it’s not just software. The barrier between hardware and software is getting erased. As Zemlin commented:

Hardware functions are increasingly being abstracted into software. You can see this in software defined networking (SDN), server virtualization, and the cloud. This has put a lot of pressure on hardware vendors. More and more specialist hardware has been replaced by open source software running on generic x86 boxes.

]]>Congress Passes The National Timing Security and Resilience Act of 2018https://www.nwtime.org/congress-passes-the-national-timing-security-and-resilience-act-of-2018/
Tue, 11 Dec 2018 17:12:42 +0000https://www.nwtime.org/?p=17594The following is from a recent Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation update: “This month saw a significant milestone for us with Congress’ passage of the National Timing Security and Resilience Act of 2018 as a part of the regular US Coast Guard authorization bill. The act requires the Secretary of Transportation to establish a difficult… Read More

]]>The following is from a recent Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation update:

“This month saw a significant milestone for us with Congress’ passage of the National Timing Security and Resilience Act of 2018 as a part of the regular US Coast Guard authorization bill. The act requires the Secretary of Transportation to establish a difficult to disrupt terrestrial timing signal that is compatible with other such systems around the world as a backup for GPS timing. Combined with the $10M appropriated last year for a technology demonstration, we can expect some substantial progress on making America’s networks and navigation safer in the coming year.

This legislation is a direct result of five years’ effort working with members of Congress and their staff, providing drafting assistance, answering innumerable questions, and RNTF officers’ testimony at two congressional hearings.”

]]>Redefining The Secondhttps://www.nwtime.org/redefining-the-second/
Fri, 07 Dec 2018 18:18:52 +0000https://www.nwtime.org/?p=17575Fascinating article in Science (@sciencemagazine) earlier this year showcasing the great work at NIST and other organizations focused on continually improving time accuracy on the threshold of the 2020s. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/03/better-atomic-clocks-scientists-prepare-redefine-second

]]>Fascinating article in Science (@sciencemagazine) earlier this year showcasing the great work at NIST and other organizations focused on continually improving time accuracy on the threshold of the 2020s.

]]>BootstrapCDN donates to NTF via OpenCollectivehttps://www.nwtime.org/bootstrapcdn-donates-to-network-time-foundation-via-opencollective/
https://www.nwtime.org/bootstrapcdn-donates-to-network-time-foundation-via-opencollective/#respondWed, 21 Nov 2018 13:30:10 +0000https://www.nwtime.org/?p=17551This is a guest post by the maintainers of BootstrapCDN Open Source projects that make up the core infrastructure keeping the internet operating are often taken for granted. Though these projects are not the most exciting projects at first glance, they become the center of attention when there’s a security breach or other disruptive event.… Read More

Open Source projects that make up the core infrastructure keeping the internet operating are often taken for granted. Though these projects are not the most exciting projects at first glance, they become the center of attention when there’s a security breach or other disruptive event.

BootstrapCDN understands and appreciates the vital importance of organizations like Network Time Foundation (NTF) that ensure the continuing development and support of open source. We rely on the Network Time Protocol (NTP), a critical core project of the Internet’s infrastructure, to deliver billions of requests each day.

]]>NTF Success Stories – LinuxPTP Under the Seahttps://www.nwtime.org/ntf-success-stories-linuxptp-under-the-sea/
Tue, 30 Oct 2018 17:22:36 +0000https://www.nwtime.org/?p=17542For 60 years, the Center for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) has been providing R&D in support of NATO. The CMRE has advanced oceanographic science and instrumentation, moored scientific platforms, underwater acoustics and communication, conventional and advanced sonar systems, and cetacean risk mitigation policy. It is currently a leading center for advances in unmanned autonomous… Read More

For 60 years, the Center for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) has been providing R&D in support of NATO. The CMRE has advanced oceanographic science and instrumentation, moored scientific platforms, underwater acoustics and communication, conventional and advanced sonar systems, and cetacean risk mitigation policy. It is currently a leading center for advances in unmanned autonomous vehicle applications and operations.

At the core of these disciplines is the need to measure and quantify. The majority of applications require data acquisition systems that provide absolute time stamping in order to synchronize data sets across independent, often far removed, acquisition platforms. With Moore’s law perfectly predicting advances in miniaturization and processing speeds, bulky and expensive time stamping systems have given way to smaller systems that combine time stamping with the ability to convert analog to digital data on the same chip. Concurrently, the ubiquity of the Ethernet has cemented the practicality and applicability of network time protocols (NTP, PTP) as robust sources of time.

CMRE has been using state-of-the-art embedded multi-channel simultaneous sampling data acquisition modules that utilize PTP for low-latency, high-resolution time stamping. Originally, these miniaturized, high-speed modules were used on surface research vessels that took advantage of unobstructed views of the sky, as well as ample ship space, to implement rack mounted GPS/PTP clocks that served PTP time to multi-module systems. The success of the systems prompted CMRE to implement them on its autonomous underwater vehicles. However, these AUVs presented space constraints, limiting the choice of PTP turnkey servers.

Leveraging the Network Time Foundation’s open source LinuxPTP project, CMRE discovered it could build its own PTP Grandmaster Clock (GM) and that, surprisingly, could serve NTP time, too. Fortunately, the AUVs were equipped with low-drift, stable freewheeling clocks (CSAC/OCXO) used in Linux-based, NTP stratum 1 servers, making the implementation of PTP time very easy. The result was a single Linux box that acted as NTP server and PTP Grandmaster Clock. Success was gauged on how well the data acquisition modules responded to this “homegrown” GM.

To the modules, the GM was following the PTP protocol expected. Further analysis of the actual data collected has shown that the time stamps of external (outside the AUV) events recorded by the modules were indeed in sync with the absolute timestamps (GPS/PTP) on the external platforms that had generated those events. This result assured CMRE that the entire timechain was functioning as expected. LinuxPTP had saved the day.

]]>Q1 – Q2 Accomplishments 2018https://www.nwtime.org/q1-q2-accomplishments-2018/
Mon, 23 Jul 2018 19:14:07 +0000https://www.nwtime.org/?p=17506Network Time Foundation Q1 – Q2 Accomplishments 2018 First, we want to thank all our generous members and donors. As a nonprofit organization, it is all of you who help Network Time Foundation produce and maintain the most reliable, secure and trusted open source network time software, which is so vital to the infrastructure… Read More

First, we want to thank all our generous members and donors. As a nonprofit organization, it is all of you who help Network Time Foundation produce and maintain the most reliable, secure and trusted open source network time software, which is so vital to the infrastructure of our modern world.

Software Releases & Other Technical Achievements

Released ntp-4.2.8p11.

Released version 1.9 of Linuxptp on 3/31/2018, one year and five months after the previous release. Pushed out tag v1.9 and a tarball on Sourceforge and https://github.com/nwtime/linuxptp.

Spectracom renewed their Associate membership, but changed its consortium from NTP to PTP.

8 Individual memberships were renewed.

Donations of In-kind Services and Support

The migration of nwtime.org to Amazon Web Services by Scott Waddell of Rooster Glue was completed, which drastically improved page load times and performance. Amazon Web Services (AWS) will be hosting nwtime.org, with Scott Waddell consulting on enterprise architecture.

Signed a SOW and agreement with Symas to upgrade and fix our OpenLDAP instance and improve volunteer, contributor and user experience. For their donation of $50K in LDAP work, we added Symas as an In-kind member.

As part of NTF’s commitment to financial transparency, Richard W. Brewster, CPA, PC completed NTF’s 2017 audit. Their assessment shows that all financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of Network Time Foundation, Inc. as of December 31, 2017.

]]>NTF’s 2018 Q1 Accomplishmentshttps://www.nwtime.org/ntfs-2018-q1-accomplishments/
Thu, 24 May 2018 19:00:13 +0000https://www.nwtime.org/?p=17478We want to thank all our generous members and donors. As a nonprofit organization, it is all of you who help Network Time Foundation produce and maintain the most reliable, secure and trusted open source network time software, which is so vital to the infrastructure of our modern world. Software Releases & Other Technical Achievements… Read More

]]>We want to thank all our generous members and donors. As a nonprofit organization, it is all of you who help Network Time Foundation produce and maintain the most reliable, secure and trusted open source network time software, which is so vital to the infrastructure of our modern world.

Software Releases & Other Technical Achievements

Released ntp-4.2.8p11.

Released version 1.9 of Linuxptp on 3/31/2018, one year and five months after the previous release. Pushed out tag v1.9 and a tarball on Sourceforge and https://github.com/nwtime/linuxptp.

Added NTS extension field coding.

Phase I of an NTS development contract with the National Metrology Institute of Germany is almost complete and NTS testing has started.

Revenue

Spectracom invoiced for a renewal of its $6K Associate membership, but changed its consortium from NTP to PTP.

4 Individual memberships were renewed.

Donations of In-kind Services and Support

The migration of nwtime.org to AWS by Rooster Glue was completed, which drastically improved page load times and performance. Rooster Glue will be hosting nwtime.org as part of their ongoing contribution.

Signed a SOW and agreement with Symas to upgrade and fix our OpenLDAP instance and improve volunteer, contributor and user experience. For their donation of $50K in LDAP work, we added Symas as an In-kind member.

]]>PublicNTP Partnership Announcementhttps://www.nwtime.org/publicntp-partnership-announcement/
Thu, 29 Mar 2018 13:00:17 +0000https://www.nwtime.org/?p=17451PublicNTP Partners with Network Time Foundation Network Time Foundation and PublicNTP, Inc. are proud to announce that PublicNTP has joined Network Time Foundation as an Institutional Member at the Partner level. The two organizations are combining their resources to bolster their shared goal of providing more Network Time Protocol (NTP) servers. Specifically, this helps to… Read More

Network Time Foundation and PublicNTP, Inc. are proud to announce that PublicNTP has joined Network Time Foundation as an Institutional Member at the Partner level.

The two organizations are combining their resources to bolster their shared goal of providing more Network Time Protocol (NTP) servers. Specifically, this helps to get coverage in areas of the world lacking reliable Internet time sources. Also, many critical industries depend on accurate time. Some examples include cybersecurity, public transportation, health care, and manufacturing.

PublicNTP is addressing the growing need for accurate network time servers in under-served communities around the world. They do this by putting free and unrestricted NTP servers in areas that don’t currently have enough. Many areas previously had none. These new NTP servers provide secure and reliable time sources to the people in these areas. At this time they are operating NTP servers in 22 cities in 17 countries, across 14 time zones and six continents. Additionally, installation of many more NTP servers is planned.

Critical stuff!

This Helps You and the World

This partnership establishes a direct line of communication and collaboration between PublicNTP and Network Time Foundation. As a result, all users of PublicNTP’s time servers always have the latest, most secure version of the NTP reference implementation software.As a result, joining Network Time Foundation adds PublicNTP to a growing list of institutions and individuals supporting this vital cornerstone of the Internet’s infrastructure.